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Filed under: Virtual Console

People who bought Phantasy Star II upon its original Genesis release knew what they were getting into immediately upon opening the box. This Phantasy Star II Hint Book was the first warning that the game was brutally hard (well, that and the Phantasy Star name, which was equally foreboding for Master System gamers). The 110-page Hint Book, clad in ALARM YELLOW (actually kind of a subdued yellow) was players’ official notice that Phantasy Star II was the kind of game that you needed a hint book for.

We didn’t have GameFAQs back then — if a dungeon was complicated, we usually got lost; if a boss was challenging, we usually died. Sega’s thoughtful inclusion of a hint book provided a nice alternative to assured failure: possible success — with a side of failure.

We’ve excerpted the hint book for your perusal. Check it out if you just downloaded the Virtual Console version of Phantasy Star II and want help getting started, or if you’d just like to see the state-of-the-art in strategy guides circa 1990. If that’s not enough (and it isn’t), check Phantasy-Star.net for more transcribed information from the book!

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Filed under: Virtual Console

The internet has made it easy to find cheats for games, but we miss the tips pages from game magazines, when the discovery of a new code could inspire you to go back to an old game. These codes aren't exactly new, but oldness is the essence of the Virtual Console! We're bringing back the classic codes every week on The VC Advantage.

It's another special celebration this week at Wii Fanboy, and we thought that we would do something special in this week's VC Advantage, involving one of the most iconic Virtual Console games -- in fact, one of the most iconic video games of all time. Even though Super Mario Bros. didn't come out in the U.S. until Christmas, it's the canonical Nintendo game and thus seems like a perfect candidate for the Wii anniversary week VCA.

Two (more) caveats before we delve into our subject matter: first, we'd like to bring up the point that not all secrets are cheats, and not all are intentional. Some of the most interesting discoveries in video games were put in there totally by accident, or are the result of someone's imagination. Second, the images and subject matter of today's VCA are as not safe for work as unaltered Super Mario Bros. footage can be.

The Kintamario

In 1-2, or any other level in which you can get on top of the line of blocks acting as an upper screen boundary, you can perform a puerile visual gag that makes Mario resemble a tanuki, but not in the same way that Super Mario Bros. 3's Tanooki Suit did. Simply position the coin in the coin display between Mario's legs. The coin's "flashing" color is the same as Mario's skin tone, so Mario will appear to have a rounded protuberance between his legs. That's right, Kintamario is a portmanteau consisting of the words kintama 'balls, testicles' and Mario. Oh, how clever!

The Unkomario

This equally childish gag uses the same setup: positioning Mario in front of the coin icon. If you then crouch, it sort of looks like Mario is defecating, right there on the bricks! "Take that, bricks," we imagine Mario saying, "maybe next time, you'll just give me the star instead of making me beat it out of your friend over there." Unko means 'feces', of course!

Something as ridiculously silly can only be funny to children, right? Maybe not. Check out 9-Volt and 18-Volt's intro video from Wario Ware: Smooth Moves and see if you see anything familiar. Apparently someone at Intelligent Systems thinks it's funny too!

We like stuff like this not only because we're giggling man-children, but because we like the idea of finding new ways to enjoy our games. This is user-created content, right here.

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Filed under: Virtual Console

The internet has made it easy to find cheats for games, but we miss the tips pages from game magazines, when the discovery of a new code could inspire you to go back to an old game. These codes aren't exactly new, but oldness is the essence of the Virtual Console! We're bringing back the classic codes every week on The VC Advantage.

Puyo Puyo, Compile's series of falling-blob puzzle games, currently has two iterations on the American Virtual Console. Neither of these games contain the words "Puyo" or "Puyo" in their titles. But Kirby's Avalanche and Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine are Puyo through and through(yo). Which automatically means that they're cute and enjoyable Tetris/Columns-esque puzBlogsmith : JC.Fletcher@weblogsinc.comzle games. And (insert segue here) here are some codes for them.

Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine (GEN)
Skip to the final boss: Yes, it's weird that a puzzle game like this has level passwords. It's even weirder for it to have bosses. Should you want to experience the weirdness for yourself, you can take advantage of the fact that level passwords are delightfully easy to share on the Internet -- much more so than, say, save files. To access the final boss, enter the following password: for easy mode, enter Yellow, Has, Blue, Blue. For normal, enter Purple, Yellow, Has, Clear. Hard: Has, Clear, Purple, Has. Hardest: Red, Red, Clear, Yellow.

Kirby's Avalanche (SNES)
Custom options menu: Hold down all four face buttons on controller 2 during gameplay, then reset the game. Go into the options menu and more options will appear, including level select and a sound test. We cannot guarantee the utility of this code; in fact, it's a bit of a research interest for us. Does the soft reset of the Virtual Console work like a real reset? If this code works, it does!

[Codes via GameFAQs]

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Filed under: Virtual Console, Video

The internet has made it easy to find cheats for games, but we miss the tips pages from game magazines, when the discovery of a new code could inspire you to go back to an old game. These codes aren't exactly new, but oldness is the essence of the Virtual Console! We're bringing back the classic codes every week on The VC Advantage.

In honor of the highest-profile Virtual Console release in quite a while, we thought we'd do a special video presentation today. Super Mario Bros. 3 has the "honor" of having one of its best secrets screamed about by Fred Savage and Rilo Kiley's Jenny Lewis in the climactic sequence of a major motion picture. One that, we admit, has temporarily relieved us of our feelings of nostalgia, and made us very glad that we no longer reside in the 1980's.

We can't think of too many movies in which the deus ex machina is a hidden item in an NES game. Therefore, The Wizard, as painful as it can be to watch, is pretty much the Official Movie of the VC Advantage by default. Grab your popcorn and your Power Glove and settle in for (seven minutes of) The Wizard!

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Filed under: Virtual Console

The internet has made it easy to find cheats for games, but we miss the tips pages from game magazines, when the discovery of a new code could inspire you to go back to an old game. These codes aren't exactly new, but oldness is the essence of the Virtual Console! We're bringing back the classic codes every week on The VC Advantage.

Today is the perfect day to look at some of the spookier games on the Virtual Console, and then help you face your fears and take them on. It would certainly have been a good day to talk about Ghosts 'n Goblins games, as well, but ... we already did that. Uh, as part of our Halloween special, here's a link to that old VC Advantage! It's ... uh, back from the dead!

Luckily, awkward backlinks aren't the only thing we can present for our Halloween edition of The VC Advantage. There are still some gruesome games we have yet to cover!

And that means that it's now totally scary time! Turn out all the lights and stuff! We're making weird "oooooo" spooky noises, but you can't hear it, because we'll have written this hours ago by the time you're reading it, and also we're not in the same room as you!

Splatterhouse (TG16)
Hard mode: What's scarier than a game in which the main character dies, over and over and over again, forced to relive the same horrific period of a few seconds before he's ripped apart yet again by disgusting, nightmarish monsters? Probably a lot of stuff. Dentistry comes to mind. Loneliness. But what's scarier in the context of video game alterations caused by input of preprogrammed button sequences? Probably still some stuff. To access hard mode, hold Select at the title screen until the word HARD appears.

Castlevania (NES)
Hard mode: Yes, it's another hard mode, but this one seems pretty notable. We had no idea that Castlevania even had one of these, and we doubt anyone else ever would have were it not for cheat devices and ROM hacking-- because you access Castlevania's hard mode by completing the game, and that is impossible. Of all the games to put a hard mode in. Also we heard that if you finish the hard mode, Koji Igarashi will ride a Medusa head to your house and give you a million dollars. And nobody will ever know if that's true.

Kid Chameleon (GEN)
Level skip: Kid Chameleon isn't really that scary, but it is about dressing up in costumes. And that is the true meaning of Halloween (also, candy, which is delicious, when eaten.) To skip straight to the last boss, find some blogs above the flag in the Blue Lake Woods level and jump to the last one. Then press down, right, jump, and special.

[Codes via GameFAQs]

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Filed under: Virtual Console

Golden Axe has some weird inconsistencies regarding names. First, the name Golden Axe implies that there would be some kind of golden axe in the game. But the axe-wielding character's axe is silver. And, more confusingly, the axe-carrying warrior is not the guy named "Ax Battler"-- he uses a sword.

We don't care if people don't like the Golden Axe games anymore. We still love playing them. We love riding chicken monsters as a huge cat-guy. We love the "bleah" sound all the enemies make when they die in Golden Axe II.

Golden Axe (GEN)
More Continues: At the character selection screen, hold down-left, A, and C. Release all the buttons and press Start. You'll have nine continues, which should help make up for all the jerks hitting you in the back while you're in the middle of a combo. Also the jerks running and jumping into you when you're trying to ride the chicken monster. The hard part is releasing the buttons at the appropriate time to choose your character (Gilius Thunderhead, of course) since holding down-left causes you to cycle through characters.

Golden Axe II (GEN)
Tons of magic: This glitch requires a little bit of inconvenience, but it's totally worth it. When the boss music starts to play in one of the first four levels, hold the A button and don't release it until the screen turns black. During the bonus stage, don't press any buttons at all. When the next stage starts, you'll have 255 magic points. If you try to use more than your character's maximum in one spell, you'll freeze the game.

Altered Beast (GEN)
Beast select: There don't seem to be any cheats for the once Japan-and-Sega Channel-exclusive Golden Axe III, so we decided to sub in another Genesis game that features anthropomorphic monster guys. This code will let you play as any of the game's beasts, including the rolling bear guy! At the title screen, hold all three buttons, then press Start. You'll be taken to a menu in which you can choose the beast transformation for each of the game's five stages!

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Filed under: Virtual Console

The Internet has made it easy to find cheats for games, but we miss the tips pages from game magazines, when the discovery of a new code could inspire you to go back to an old game. These codes aren't exactly new, but oldness is the essence of the Virtual Console! We're bringing back the classic codes every week on The VC Advantage.

Everyone likes shooters, except for people who don't. And even they might, if they played the right one! We like them anyway, and guess who picks the games for the column? That's right, a groundhog looking at his shadow a random number generator us. Besides, shooters are really hard, and it's nice to have some kind of advantage. Here are some codes for a very small sample of the VC's many shooters.

Gate of Thunder (TG16 CD)
Stage Select: Whenever we see the name Gate of Thunder, all we can think about is the KISS song "God of Thunder." So instead of cleverly trying to work it in to the text here, we're just going to link to it, and then tell you how to select stages in Gate of Thunder. Sometimes the direct approach is the best approach. To access the stage select, press I, II, II, I, select, I, II, I, II, select, select, run.

Xevious (NES)
Skip the Fortress: We've kind of avoided playing Xevious in the last few years, since our only contact with the game was the annoying Atari 7800 version. Luckily, the NES version is less annoying and totally worth looking into-- if nothing else, as one of the first vertical shooters. It's possible to skip the Andor Genesis fortress by pausing the game right before getting to it, then unpausing it. We miss pause-glitch cheats!

R-Type (TG16)
More continues: Today, we're going to help you learn two surprising things about R-Type. First: you can give yourself more credits by holding select and jamming on the I button at the title screen. Here's the second thing.

[Codes via GameFAQs]

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Filed under: Virtual Console

The Internet has made it easy to find cheats for games, but we miss the tips pages from game magazines, when the discovery of a new code could inspire you to go back to an old game. These codes aren't exactly new, but oldness is the essence of the Virtual Console! We're bringing back the classic codes every week on The VC Advantage.

We planned to do a blowout of Neo Geo cheats in celebration of the all-Neo Monday, but forces conspired against us. First, there just aren't that many codes for the Neo Geo games released this week. That's the biggest problem. Second, Neo games may not even display properly on your TV, meaning that a lot of people may not even be able to play them, much less play them using advanced cheaterly techniques.

So, instead of a blowout, you get ... two unlockable characters in Art of Fighting.

Unlock Mr. Karate: Do you want Mr. Karate? Then when you reach him in the single-player mode, lose. (Which, against SNK bosses, is the default state.) Start a two-player game and Mr. Karate will be available.

Unlock Mr. Big: It's true*. You can play Art of Fighting with the band responsible for the hit ballad "To Be With You". They all move in unison. It's a little weird. You access Mr. Big in the same way you play with Mr. Karate: by losing to him, then starting a two-player game.

*By "true", we mean "not true".

[Codes via GameFAQs]

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Filed under: Virtual Console

The Internet has made it easy to find cheats for games, but we miss the tips pages from game magazines, when the discovery of a new code could inspire you to go back to an old game. These codes aren't exactly new, but oldness is the essence of the Virtual Console! We're bringing back the classic codes every week on The VC Advantage.

This week's theme is simple: it's Devil's Crush. That's more than enough to sustain its very own VC Advantage, because Devil's Crush is amazing. As far as we're concerned, it's more than enough to sustain its own site. It's definitely our favorite VC download so far (barring new developments like Sin and Punishment). So we thought we would look at some ways to enhance your enjoyment of this absolute masterpiece even further.

Sound Test: Sound tests in games are usually no big deal, but Devil's Crush's theme song is so mind-blowingly rokken that we'd be happy to just leave it on for a few hours and turn the TV off. Naxat Soft has anticipated this desire, making the main theme number 01 in their list of sounds. To access the Sound Test, pause the game and then hit select to bring up the high score list. Press up, right, down, left, and then I, and the first high score will be replaced by the sound test.
Infinite Balls: One could argue that Devil's Crush already has infinite balls, but in a way, that's kind of the problem. This code gives you the infinite balls within the context of gameplay, so you can play the game to completion (oh yeah, it's got an ending. More on that in a second.) To get unlimited lives, enter the (probably player-generated) passwords AAAAAAHAAA or PPPPPPPPPA.

Skip to the ending: To bypass all that annoying game and just see the ending (one frame of which you're already seeing-- OMG SPOILARZ), enter THECRUSHEL as a password. The game will start, but you'll have a load of points-- and the top of the screen will be all glitched out. As soon as the ball hits absolutely anything, the score will max out and you'll trigger the ending.

Instant 2 million points: We won't be verifying this one any time soon, but apparently if, after launching, you get the ball into the crown of the big evil face in the second screen without touching any of the blob guys, you'll get 2,000,000 points. Good luck with that.

[Codes via Atari7800.com, found pretty much all over the place anyway]

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Filed under: Virtual Console

The Internet has made it easy to find cheats for games, but we miss the tips pages from game magazines, when the discovery of a new code could inspire you to go back to an old game. These codes aren't exactly new, but oldness is the essence of the Virtual Console! We're bringing back the classic codes every week on The VC Advantage.

Hudson's Adventure Island series stars a real-life Hudson executive called Takahashi Meijin, who is known as "16shot" for his famous ability to push buttons 16 times a second. In the game, he's a chubby kid in a grass skirt who finds weapons and stuff in enormous eggs. Just like in real life. (The game made a little more sense when it was called Wonder Boy and starred someone who didn't have a real job). What is it with Hudson and putting real people in their games?

Takahashi Meijin may be able to jam on some buttons, but you can influence his fake life with cheat codes. Advantage: you.

Adventure Island (NES):
Continue: Close to the "G" sign at the end of stage 1, jump up and down to make an egg appear, which contains the Hudson Bee. You can then continue your game by holding any direction and pressing start.

New Adventure Island (TG16):
Level Select: New Adventure Island is only new now in comparison with the original NES game. Given that it came out in 1992, it's a pretty Old Adventure Island itself. Press left, left, I, right, right, II, up, down, up, down at the title screen to select levels in this (much better, actually) semi-remake.

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